The semiconductor industry has experienced rapid growth due to continuous improvements in the integration density of a variety of electronic components (e.g., transistors, diodes, resistors, capacitors, etc.). For the most part, this improvement in integration density has come from repeated reductions in minimum feature size, which allows more components to be integrated into a given area. However, the smaller feature size may lead to the undesirable increase in contact resistance. As the demand for miniaturization, higher speed and greater bandwidth, as well as lower power consumption and latency has grown recently, there has grown a need for reducing contact resistance.